Abruptly, Rowland tears away from the wall and begins to pace, a growl lying in wait somewhere low in his lungs. “Where is she?”
It’s only then that I realize who he’s talking about and notice that we’re missing someone from our party.
“Where’s Agnes?” I ask him, a bit needlessly.
He throws his arms in the air, a look of contempt about him when he spins around.
“She’s late,” I say slowly, and rub the hair standing up on my arms. “But…she’s never late.”
Agnes was a warrior. For a decade or more, she served on the Shadow Crusade, a feat that almost none of the other Crusaders ever accomplished. She was there all the way up until the final battle when the mages were defeated and demonkind was destroyed for good.
Or at least, demonkind as we knew it.
It’s why Rowland asked her to train us. She’s encountered more monsters, survived more battles, and held the title of warrior longer than anyone else in Hulbeck. Perhaps in all the realm at this point.
“She’s probably just…she must’ve lost track of time?”
It’s the best I can do, but even I know that her losing track of time is about as unlikely as a Crusader surviving a decade of service. The values of loyalty, duty, and diligence practically flowed in her veins. It would be against her nature to lose track of her commitments. Especially to us.
We don’t have to wonder for long though. Because it’s not long after we notice her absence that the screams begin. Screams like hissing tea kettles and distraught animals. Screams that make my skin prick and clench my heart in an iron-cold fist. Dozens of shrieks tear through the air, perhaps hundreds, surrounding us like the sea barricades the shore.
My eyes lock with Rowland’s, his pupils as wide as walnuts.
“What’s happening?” I begin to say.
But before I can finish listing all the questions buzzing in my mind, his lips move, forming a single word. “Mother.”
His feet slide out from under him and he’s running, bolting headfirst into the storm of terror before I can even make sense that he’s moving. Wide-eyed and lip quivering, I can only watch him as he disappears. I’m only eight. Whatever horrors we thought we were training to face, I never actually imagined facing them. It was a pastime born of boredom, never a necessity. Hulbeck has stood here for years. Undisturbed. Safe.
Never had I dreamed that one day we might actually need to use the skills Agnes was training us with.
And never before have I felt more helpless, more childlike.
All the times I argued that I was mature, or insisted that I could handle something as well as any adult, I know now that was a lie. I am petrified. And I am defenseless.
Something solid and warm wraps around my arm and tugs me into the shadows.
“Let me go!” I writhe, tears stinging my eyes at the thought of one of the monsters grabbing me. Feasting on my blood. Killing me. “Let me go!”
A hand clamps around my mouth. Agnes’ wrinkled face leans into view. “Hush now, or they’ll hear us.”
Trembling in her grasp, I nod, but I wonder how anyone could hear anything over the horrific wails filling the town. I watch her with wide eyes, waiting for her to tell me what to do, like she’s done in every one of our lessons. Instead, she’s quiet, and I find myself staring at a diagonal spray of blood that covers her cheek and eye.
“We have to go,” she murmurs, but then another thought occurs to her. “Rowland?”
“H-he went home. I think to find his mother.”
Solemn, Agnes shakes her head, limp, grey curls swaying around her face. “He’s gone then. We have to head inland.”
She tugs on my arm to lead me away.
“G-gone?” I yank myself out of her grasp. “What do you meangone?”
In that moment, the warrior flashes before me, the one who’s seen more pain and suffering than I can even fathom. Her eyes shine like steel, cold and sharp. There’s a forced sort of tenderness in her hands when she takes mine into hers, almost as if she doesn’t feel fear or sadness or worry for Rowland at all.
“There is nothing back there for you, I promise,” she says. “If the two of us are to survive this, we have to go. Now. The noctis haven’t made it this far into the village yet. We can still—”
“The noctis?”
